What is the risk of catching Ebola on a plane?

By Madison Park, CNN

Updated 11:37 PM ET, Thu July 31, 2014

Photos: The Ebola epidemic47 photos

The Ebola epidemic – Red Cross workers, wearing protective suits, carry the body of a person who died from Ebola during a burial in Monrovia, Liberia, on Monday, January 5. Since the epidemic started a little more than a year ago in a remote village in Guinea, the world has seen more than 8,400 deaths, according to the latest numbers from the World Health Organization. And that number is believed to be low, since there was widespread under-reporting of cases, according to WHO.

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Pauline Cafferkey, a Scottish woman diagnosed with Ebola, is put on a plane in Glasgow, Scotland, on Tuesday, December 30. Cafferkey, a 39-year-old nurse who volunteered in Sierra Leone, was being transported to London for treatment.

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Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has her temperature taken before the opening of a new Ebola clinic Tuesday, November 25, in Monrovia.

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A child who survived the Ebola virus is fed by another survivor at a treatment center on the outskirts of Freetown, Sierra Leone, on Tuesday, November 11.

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Health workers in Monrovia cover the body of a man suspected of dying from the Ebola virus on Friday, October 31.

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Kaci Hickox leaves her home in Fort Kent, Maine, to take a bike ride with her boyfriend on Thursday, October 30. Hickox, a nurse, recently returned to the United States from West Africa, where she treated Ebola victims. State authorities wanted her to avoid public places for 21 days -- the virus' incubation period. But Hickox, who twice tested negative for Ebola, said she would defy efforts to keep her quarantined at home.

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Crew members at an airport in Accra, Ghana, unload supplies sent from China on Wednesday, October 29.

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Health officials in Nairobi, Kenya, prepare to screen passengers arriving at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport on Tuesday, October 28.

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U.S. President Barack Obama hugs Ebola survivor Nina Pham in the Oval Office of the White House on Friday, October 24. Pham, one of two Dallas nurses diagnosed with the virus, was declared Ebola-free after being treated at a hospital in Bethesda, Maryland. The other nurse, Amber Vinson (not pictured), was treated in Atlanta and also declared Ebola-free.

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Health workers in Port Loko, Sierra Leone, transport the body of a person who is suspected to have died of Ebola on Tuesday, October 21.

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Health workers bury a body on the outskirts of Monrovia on Monday, October 20.

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Garteh Korkoryah, center, is comforted during a memorial service for her son, Thomas Eric Duncan, on Saturday, October 18, in Salisbury, North Carolina. Duncan, a 42-year-old Liberian citizen, died October 8 in a Dallas hospital. He was in the country to visit his son and his son's mother, and he was the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola.

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Boys run from blowing dust as a U.S. military aircraft leaves the construction site of an Ebola treatment center in Tubmanburg, Liberia, on Wednesday, October 15.

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Aid workers from the Liberian Medical Renaissance League stage an Ebola awareness event October 15 in Monrovia. The group performs street dramas throughout Monrovia to educate the public on Ebola symptoms and how to handle people who are infected with the virus.

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Ebola survivors prepare to leave a Doctors Without Borders treatment center after recovering from the virus in Paynesville, Liberia, on October 12.

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A woman crawls toward the body of her sister as a burial team takes her away for cremation Friday, October 10, in Monrovia. The sister had died from Ebola earlier in the morning while trying to walk to a treatment center, according to her relatives.

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A person peeks out from the Dallas apartment where Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person diagnosed with the Ebola virus in the United States, was staying on Friday, October 3.

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A girl cries as community activists approach her outside her Monrovia home on Thursday, October 2, a day after her mother was taken to an Ebola ward.

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A health official uses a thermometer Monday, September 29, to screen a Ukrainian crew member on the deck of a cargo ship at the Apapa port in Lagos, Nigeria.

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Workers move a building into place as part of a new Ebola treatment center in Monrovia on September 28.

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Medical staff members at the Doctors Without Borders facility in Monrovia burn clothes belonging to Ebola patients on Saturday, September 27.

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Medics load an Ebola patient onto a plane at Sierra Leone's Freetown-Lungi International Airport on Monday, September 22.

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A few people are seen in Freetown during a three-day nationwide lockdown on Sunday, September 21. In an attempt to curb the spread of the Ebola virus, people in Sierra Leone were told to stay in their homes.

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Supplies wait to be loaded onto an aircraft at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport on Saturday, September 20. It was the largest single shipment of aid to the Ebola zone to date, and it was coordinated by the Clinton Global Initiative and other U.S. aid organizations.

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A child stops on a Monrovia street Friday, September 12, to look at a man who is suspected of suffering from Ebola.

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Health workers in Monrovia place a corpse into a body bag on Thursday, September 4.

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After an Ebola case was confirmed in Senegal, people load cars with household items as they prepare to cross into Guinea from the border town of Diaobe, Senegal, on Wednesday, September 3.

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Crowds cheer and celebrate in the streets Saturday, August 30, after Liberian authorities reopened the West Point slum in Monrovia. The military had been enforcing a quarantine on West Point, fearing a spread of the Ebola virus.

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A health worker wearing a protective suit conducts an Ebola prevention drill at the port in Monrovia on Friday, August 29.

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Volunteers working with the bodies of Ebola victims in Kenema, Sierra Leone, sterilize their uniforms on Sunday, August 24.

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A burial team from the Liberian Ministry of Health unloads bodies of Ebola victims onto a funeral pyre at a crematorium in Marshall, Liberia, on Friday, August 22.

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Dr. Kent Brantly leaves Emory University Hospital on Thursday, August 21, after being declared no longer infectious from the Ebola virus. Brantly was one of two American missionaries brought to Emory for treatment of the deadly virus.

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An Ebola Task Force soldier beats a local resident while enforcing a quarantine on the West Point slum on August 20.

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Local residents gather around a very sick Saah Exco, 10, in a back alley of the West Point slum on Tuesday, August 19. The boy was one of the patients that was pulled out of a holding center for suspected Ebola patients after the facility was overrun and closed by a mob on August 16. A local clinic then refused to treat Saah, according to residents, because of the danger of infection. Although he was never tested for Ebola, Saah's mother and brother died in the holding center.

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A burial team wearing protective clothing retrieves the body of a 60-year-old Ebola victim from his home near Monrovia on Sunday, August 17.

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Workers prepare the new Ebola treatment center on August 17.

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Liberian police depart after firing shots in the air while trying to protect an Ebola burial team in the West Point slum of Monrovia on August 16. A crowd of several hundred local residents reportedly drove away the burial team and their police escort. The mob then forced open an Ebola isolation ward and took patients out, saying the Ebola epidemic is a hoax.

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A crowd enters the grounds of an Ebola isolation center in the West Point slum on August 16. The mob was reportedly shouting, "No Ebola in West Point."

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A health worker disinfects a corpse after a man died in a classroom being used as an Ebola isolation ward Friday, August 15, in Monrovia.

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Health workers in Kenema screen people for the Ebola virus on Saturday, August 9, before they enter the Kenema Government Hospital.

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Aid worker Nancy Writebol, wearing a protective suit, gets wheeled on a gurney into Emory University Hospital in Atlanta on August 5. A medical plane flew Writebol from Liberia to the United States after she and her colleague Dr. Kent Brantly were infected with the Ebola virus in the West African country.

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Members of Doctors Without Borders adjust tents in the isolation area in Kailahun on July 20.

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Boots dry in the Ebola treatment center in Kailahun on July 20.

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Dr. Jose Rovira of the World Health Organization takes a swab from a suspected Ebola victim in Pendembu, Sierra Leone, on Friday, July 18.

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Red Cross volunteers disinfect each other with chlorine after removing the body of an Ebola victim from a house in Pendembu on July 18.

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A scientist separates blood cells from plasma cells to isolate any Ebola RNA and test for the virus Thursday, April 3, at the European Mobile Laboratory in Gueckedou, Guinea.

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Health specialists work Monday, March 31, at an isolation ward for patients at the facility in southern Guinea.

Story highlights

Patients with Ebola not likely to be traveling, because symptoms are very severe

Deadly diseases like Ebola are only a plane ride away. In today's interconnected world, linked by transoceanic flights, one infected person can trigger a domino effect that pays no attention to borders.

"The concern that people are going to get on these flights and fly from West Africa, where these cases are, to anywhere in the world is ... a real possibility," said Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN's chief medical correspondent.

"I think for a long time people didn't think that that was going to happen because Ebola was sort of relegated to very remote areas of Africa. Things have changed with our globalized world."

Earlier this month, a Liberian government official who had Ebola symptoms collapsed after getting off his flight in Lagos, Nigeria on July 20. Patrick Sawyer, 40, died five days later. He had been taking care care of his Ebola-stricken sister, in Liberia, although he didn't know she had the disease, his wife told CNN.

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Health workers identified 59 people who came in contact with him including 15 in the airport staff and 44 from the hospital. He had traveled by plane via Lomé, Togo and Accra, Ghana. His case sparked concerns that the virus could disperse through air travel.

At this point, the World Health Organization does not recommend any travel or trade restrictions on Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone. However, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued warnings Thursday to avoid nonessential travel to the three West African countries.

The WHO, the International Civil Aviation Organzation and the International Air Transport Association have been coordinating efforts to fight the spread of the disease. According to an ICAO statement, they are considering passenger screenings: "The Organization remains in contact with the WHO on potential efforts which may be required to facilitate repatriation flights, as well as matters relating to air ambulance services in the affected areas."

Can plane passengers become infected?

While the CDC acknowledges it's possible a person infected with Ebola in West Africa could get on a plane and arrive in another country like the United States, the chances of the virus spreading during the journey are low.

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"This is not an airborne transmission," said Dr. Marty Cetron, director of CDC's Division of Global Migration and Quarantine. "There needs to be direct contact frequently with body fluids or blood."

Travelers should take precautions by avoiding areas experiencing outbreaks and avoid contact with Ebola patients.

Ebola symptoms include fever, intense weakness, muscle pain, headache and sore throat; followed by vomiting, diarrhea, rash, impaired kidney and liver function, and at advanced stage, both internal and external bleeding, according to the WHO.

"In the rare event that a person infected with the Ebola virus was unknowingly transported by air, WHO advises that the risks to other passengers are low.Nonetheless, WHO does advise public health authorities to carry outcontact tracing in such instances."

"As with many other global infectious disease outbreaks, airline carriers, crew members, airports can be very important partners in that front line," said Cetron. "Being educated, knowing the symptoms, recognizing what to do, having a response protocol, knowing who to call, those are really, really important parts of the global containment strategy to deal with threats like this."

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The CDC advises that when flight crew members encounter a passenger with symptoms that they suspect could be Ebola, such as fever and bleeding, that they keep the sick person away from other passengers. They've been instructed to wear disposable gloves and to provide the sickened person with a surgical mask to prevent fluids from spreading through talking, sneezing or coughing.

The airline cleaning crew are also instructed to wear disposable gloves, wipe down surfaces including armrests, seat backs, trays and light switches. The CDC says that packages and cargo should not pose a risk, unless the items have been soiled with blood or bodily fluids.

When someone becomes ill on a flight, the captain is required by aviation regulations to report the suspected case to air traffic control, according to IATA.

How it's affecting flights

Nigeria-based airline companies ASKY and Arik Air suspended operations at the end of July into Monrovia and Freetown, the capitals of Liberia and Sierra Leone, respectively. ASKY said passengers departing from Conakry, Guinea, would be screened for signs of the virus.

Most of the international flights from Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia have flights to other West African destinations like Senegal, Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire. There are several flights a week to Belgium, France and the United Kingdom too, according to data from Flightstats.com.

Passengers could get anywhere through connecting flights.

The UK Department of Health said in a statement that it is monitoring Ebola, but that the risk is still low for British citizens. "We do not, at the moment, think this is an issue that affects the UK directly," said Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond, who held a high-level meeting about the disease on Wednesday.